The Brazilian version of the World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS 2.0) is reliable and valid for chronic stroke survivors

BackgroundStroke is the leading cause of disability worldwide. Assessing stroke's impact on patients' daily activities and social participation can provide important complementary information to their rehabilitation process. However, no previous study had been conducted on the psychometric properties of the Brazilian version of the WHO Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 (WHODAS 2.0) in the stroke population.ObjectivesThis study aimed to examine the internal consistency, test-retest and inter-rater reliability, convergent validity and floor/ceiling effect of the Brazilian version of the WHODAS 2.0 in individuals after chronic stroke.MethodsTwo examiners interviewed 53 chronic stroke individuals who responded to the Brazilian 36-item version of the WHODAS 2.0 three times to analyze test-retest and inter-rater reliabilities. Floor/ceiling effects were calculated as relative frequencies of the lowest or the highest possible WHODAS 2.0 scores. Participants also responded to the Stroke Impact Scale 3.0 (SIS 3.0) and the Functional Independence Measure (FIM) to analyze convergent validity.ResultsThe internal consistency analyses for domains of WHODAS showed a strong correlation among the items of each domain (0.76-0.91) except for the "getting along" domain, which presented a moderate correlation (rho = 0,62). Total scores of WHODAS 2.0 showed satisfactory internal consistency (alpha = 0.93), good inter-rater reliability (ICC = 0.85), excellent test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.92) and no significant floor/ceiling effect. Convergent validity indicated moderate to strong correlations (rho=-0.51 to rho=-0.88; p < 0.001), with the highest values associated with the correlation with the SIS scale.ConclusionsThe Brazilian version of the WHODAS 2.0 instrument presented evidence of reliability and validity for chronic post-stroke individuals.